


i think i'll just collapse right here, thanks

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Whumptober 2020, blurred vision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: whumptober day 25 - prompt: blurred vision. nick is sick but goes to work anyway, which proves to be a mistake.
Relationships: Nick Burkhardt & Hank Griffin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	i think i'll just collapse right here, thanks

**Author's Note:**

> hi what's up i am so so tired and very stressed but here's this! it is probably not very good but oh well. hope you like it anyway?

Nick wakes up that morning and immediately knows that he’s sick. He’s achy and his head hurts and he’s chilly. But that’s the extent of it, and it’s really nothing so much as a small annoyance. Nothing to skip work over. 

At first, that assumption had been correct. It’s a paperwork day, and a little discomfort never stopped anyone from filling out the required boxes and initialling on the dotted line. But as the morning wears on, Nick starts to feel worse and worse, and even the benign task of paperwork starts to feel incredibly daunting. 

The overall achiness of his body is about the same at eleven o’clock as it had been when he’d woken up, but his head is absolutely pounding now, and he’s shivering so hard his handwriting is hardly legible, but he feels himself sweating, too, which is a terribly uncomfortable sensation.

Still, he tries to focus on his paperwork, but finds he can barely read it, let alone keep filling it out. His vision is blurring, and the letters all smudge together. He blindly signs the papers, as close to the signature lines as he can. His hand is still shaking, though, and he knows Renard will be on him about his awful penmanship later. But that is far from his most pressing issue, so he continues on with his haphazard signing. 

Around noon, he starts to feel  _ really  _ bad. He can’t even pick out the signature lines on his paperwork now, and he sets down his pen, hearing it rattle against the table for a second as his hand gives an especially violent tremor. His head is still pounding, feeling like it’s getting worse with each passing minute. And if he’d been cold before, he’s absolutely freezing now, and he wraps his arms around himself in an effort to warm up. This is despite the fact that sweat is still dripping down the back of his neck.  _ I probably have a fever, _ he lets himself think, for the first time. 

\--

A minute, or quite possibly an hour, later, Hank looks up from his own paperwork for the first time all day. He’d been focusing hard all morning, and now his reward has arrived: it's twelve-thirty, and he’s going to head out and get a sandwich from his favorite shop. 

He looks over to Nick, who is looking down at his papers, apparently as deep in concentration on them as Hank has been for the past four hours. 

“I’m gonna grab a sandwich,” he says, frowning when Nick doesn’t look up at him. “You wanna come?”

Nick blinks, processing Hank’s words as fast as he can. After a few seconds, he says, very quietly, “sure.” He’s never been less hungry in his whole life, and Hank’s mere mention of lunch has sent his stomach churning, but if he says  _ no _ Hank will ask why, and then he’ll realize Nick’s sick, and it’ll turn into a whole thing, which Nick really does not want. 

“Let’s go,” Hank says, picking up his wallet. “I’ll even buy yours, too.”

Nick gives an almost imperceptible nod, then stands up. Hank is already heading towards the doors, eager to get to his lunch, and Nick quickly steps to follow him. 

He’s not four steps into his walk when he trips over a box that he hadn’t seen, and he looks down at his feet for a second in confusion.  _ How had he missed that?  _

When he looks back up, everything is blurry. Granted, it had been blurry before, but nowhere near as bad as this. Everything he sees is just light and color, all of it blurring together so much that he can’t pick anything out. 

He sees one vague shape approach him, and then it speaks to him in Hank’s voice, but there’s a  _ whooshing  _ sound in his head that makes it impossible to hear what he’s saying.  _ Oh no, _ he thinks, because this  _ cannot  _ be good, and then his legs start to shake underneath him, and he wants very much to call out to Hank, but a sudden spike of nausea deems that action unwise, and before he can think of some alternative method of alerting Hank to his distress, he’s collapsing to the ground. 

\--

Nick wakes up on the uncomfortable and immediately recognizable material of the break room couch. He’s absolutely _ freezing, _ and there’s something cold and wet on his forehead which is definitely not helping matters. He reaches up a hand to move it away, but someone grabs his wrist, and he looks up blearily, recognizing the vague, slightly blurred shape of Hank.

“You have a fever, Nick,” he says, putting Nick’s hand back down on the couch. “And I know you’re probably freezing right now, but your body temperature isn’t. You need to leave that cloth where it is. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it’s going to make you feel better.”

Nick doesn’t like Hank’s words much, because they mean he is going to have to continue being cold, but he trusts Hank, so he listens and doesn’t try to move anything, noting with some distress that his body feels frankly  _ awful, _ besides simply feeling cold. He groans, vague memories of earlier in the day spilling into his head. He’s sick.  _ Really  _ sick.

“I’m sick,” he observes, brilliantly, closing his eyes to avoid looking around at the blurry, nauseating colors of his workplace.

“I know,” Hank replies, his voice soft and kind. “And we’ll be having a talk about coming in to work sick when you’re feeling better,” he adds, his voice still kind. He places a far-too-cold hand on Nick’s cheek (which, little can he tell, is far too warm). “You’ve gotta take better care of yourself, man.”

Nick sighs softly in response, too sick to formulate a true reply. “Thanks,” he decides is an appropriate reply. He takes a deep breath, feeling himself teetering on the edge of sleep.

“Feel better,” Hank says, noticing Nick’s tiredness and patting him on the shoulder as he pushes himself up from where he’s been kneeling on the floor next to the couch. 

“I’ll try,” Nick murmurs, and then he drifts back off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading this!!! ugh my upcoming week is so busy and then my birthday is one week from now and so is my first college application deadline and i have so so much to do aaaaaaa i hate it i hate it !! but anyway i am very happy that you read this and thanks so much and please leave a comment if you liked it!!!


End file.
